Beloved of Ra

It has been very clear for some time to the residents of Grenfell Tower that those responsible for ensuring the smooth running of Lancaster West Estate are failing in their duty of care and wilfully allowing our residential amenity to decline in unacceptable ways.

Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in our landlords failure to deal with a serious health and safety issue that recently developed at the entrance/exit to Grenfell Tower. This matter is of particular concern as there is only one entry and exit to Grenfell Tower during the Improvement Works and the potential for a fire to break out in the communal area on the walkway does not bear thinking about as residents would be trapped in the building with no way out!

In recent weeks TMO staff allowed a quantity of household ‘bulk’ rubbish to accumulate, including old mattresses, in the temporary entrance foyer of the tower. This accumulation constituted a potential fire risk and a danger to residents. The TMO area manager and her staff were slow to react and no-one had been bothered to organise the clearence of this rubbish.

It has to be said that residents should not be dumping rubbish in this manner, but because of the improvement works currently underway there is no elevator access to the ground level, leaving them with an awkward final descent through a narrow twisting stairwell. It would appear that that not all residents with bulk rubbish to dispose of are willing to take this task on, and we suspect that some are probably physically incapable of doing so. It is therefore vital that the caretaking staff take responsibility for ensuring that all such health and safety hazards are promptly dealt with. In this instance they clearly failed to do so, and there is no evidence that we can see of any timely intervention from the management team, who bear the ultimate responsibility for dealing with such issues. Our readers should also note that this is not the first occasion on which we have raised fire safety issues in the Grenfell Tower area with Siobhan Rumble, and that we have never received satisfactory responses from her, or any other TMO officer, on any previous occasion.

The Grenfell Action Group predict that it won’t be long before the words of this blog come back to haunt the KCTMO management and we will do everything in our power to ensure that those in authority know how long and how appallingly our landlord has ignored their responsibility to ensure the heath and safety of their tenants and leaseholders. They can’t say that they haven’t been warned!

Gone But Not Forgotten

I wouldn't be surprised. The SE was very warm yesterday, and London even more so. This would require fridges to work much harder to keep their contents cold, so an old or faulty appliance could well overheat.

Which is rather worrying for me, as my fridge is old (not sure how old, as I bought it secondhand).

Cuckoo

Awful. Absolutely terrible. Thankfully a very rare occurrence, but I suspect many thousands of people will be sleeping fitfully tonight, wondering not only about the state of their own property and it's contents, but also their neighbours.

Justified & Ancient

The fire has just taken hold in the middle of the block of flats and at this rate the chance of it collapsing is even higher now.just an update a big piece of concrete has come off. I'm watching bbc news.

Piffle Prospector

"According to the board minutes of the Kensington and Chelsea Tenants Management organisation, which runs the building, it has been engaged in “ongoing publicity to residents, particularly in relation to the ‘stay put’ fire strategy and procedures residents should follow in event of a fire in their flat or elsewhere in their block”. What impact did this advice have?"

Gavin Barwell failed to give the review the green light during his tenure as housing minister, despite it already having waited for years.

The fire expert behind a report calling for the desperately needed safety appraisal, said he had spoken to Mr Barwell earlier this year and the then-minister told him no decision on the review had been taken. ...